Read the book: «The House of Armour», page 7

“I haven’t time, I fear.”

“I will send you home in a sleigh,” said Mr. Armour, strolling toward them.

“Oh, in that case I can give you a few minutes,” said Stargarde.

“This is what we might call a case of love at first sight, isn’t it?” said Judy, fluttering like a kindly disposed blackbird between Vivienne and Stargarde.

Stargarde laughed merrily as she went into the bedroom.

Vivienne was left behind with Mr. Armour. Ever since her interview in the library with him he had regarded her with some friendliness and with decided curiosity. Now he asked with interest,

“Did you ever see any one like Miss Turner?”

“No,” said Vivienne warmly, “never; she is so devoted, so enthusiastic; her protégés must love her.”

“They do,” he said dryly.

“It is not my way to plunge into sudden intimacies,” said Vivienne with a little proud movement of her neck; “yet with Miss Turner I fancy all rules are set aside.”

“She is certainly unconventional,” said Mr. Armour.

“I wish I were like that,” said Vivienne. “I wish that I had it in me to live for others.”

“You have a different mission in life,” he said. “You are cut out for a leader in society rather than a religious or philanthropic enthusiast. By the way, Macartney wants your marriage to take place as soon as possible. Of course you concur in his opinion.”

“Yes,” said Vivienne absently, “I will agree to anything that he arranges. As I told you the other day,” she went on with some embarrassment, “I think it is advisable for me to leave here as soon as possible. However, I spoke too abruptly to you. I have been wishing for an opportunity to tell you so.”

“Have you?” he said, twisting the corners of his moustache and trying not to smile at the lofty manner in which she delivered her apology. “It really did not matter.”

“No, I dare say not,” she replied with a quick glance at him; “but I was not polite.”

“I mean it did not matter about me,” he said. “A business man must get used to knocks of various kinds.”

How conceited he was, how proud of his business ability! Vivienne shrugged her shoulders and said nothing.

“About this engagement of yours,” he went on; “if you please we will allow its length to remain undetermined for a time. I may as well confess that I brought you here for a purpose. What that purpose is I do not care to tell, and I beg that you will not speculate about it. Do you think that you can make up your mind to remain under my roof for a few weeks longer?”

“I wounded his self-love so deeply that he will never recover from it,” said the girl to herself. Then she went on aloud in a constrained voice. “It is scarcely necessary for you to ask me that question. To stay here for as long a time as you choose is a small favor for me to grant when you have been kind enough to take care of me for so many years.”

“Ah thank you,” said Mr. Armour aloud. To himself he added, “Proud, passionate, restless girl. She will never forgive me for not liking her. She has her father’s face and her mother’s disposition.”

CHAPTER XIII
DR. CAMPERDOWN MAKES A MORNING CALL

Old Polypharmacy, Dr. Camperdown’s horse, attached to a sleigh, was pegging slowly out one of the Arm roads on the day after his master’s visit to Vivienne.

The afternoon was fine and brilliantly sunny, and Polypharmacy unharried by a check-rein, and almost happy for once that he had blinders on, kept his head down and his eyes half shut, on account of the dazzling glare of the sun on the white fields of snow.

If Polypharmacy was half asleep, his master was certainly very wide awake. He sat in a stooping attitude, his body responding to the bumps and jerks of the little open sleigh bobbing over the hillocks of snow, and his keen, bright eyes going like an eagle’s over in the direction of Pinewood. When they reached the sullen, dark semicircle of evergreen surrounding it, he slapped the reins smartly over the back of his lazy quadruped, and ejaculated: “Hie on, Polypharmacy, and hear my programme—to have my delayed conversation with my lady and get back to town by five. Now comport yourself accordingly.”

Polypharmacy, with a disapproving toss of his head at his master’s haste, yet thought it better to quicken his pace and was soon trotting through the lodge gateway and up the drive to the house.

Arrived in front of the hall door, Camperdown sprang out of the sleigh and attaching a weight to the head of his horse rang a smart peal on the bell that brought a maid tripping to the door.

“I want to see Mrs. Colonibel,” he said in his usual lordly fashion and striding past her into the house. “Is she at home?”

The girl clung to the door handle. “No, sir, she isn’t at home—that is, she doesn’t want to see any one.”

“She’ll see me,” he said. “Take me to her.”

Mrs. Colonibel unaware of the visit in store for her, had after lunch donned a dressing-gown of her favorite shade of red, had put on a pair of bedroom slippers and had made her way to the smoking-room, an apartment that was unoccupied at that time of day.

It was a constant source of chagrin to her that she had neither a maid of her own nor a boudoir. A number of times she had hinted to her cousin Stanton the desirability of bestowing on her these privileges, but so far he had listened in unresponsive silence. Of the delight that would fill her soul could she but speak of “my maid” and “my boudoir” while engaging in conversation with her friends, that unsympathetic man had not the slightest idea.

With brows drawn together she looked discontentedly about the little room, which however, had a certain gaudy comfort of its own. A wood fire was burning merrily in the grate, a big easy-chair by the window held out inviting arms toward her. She had been at a sleighing party the evening before and was tired, and she had a novel and a box of sweets with which to console herself; so at last she sighed contentedly and subsiding among soft cushions was soon deep in a tale of love and sorrow.

At one of the most harrowing passages in the story, where the heroine involved in a hundred embarrassments sees no chance of escape and where her sad condition compelled Mrs. Colonibel to apply her handkerchief to her eyes, she was startled by hearing in a deep voice,

“But Black Donald sat in his coffin and ate oat cake.”

Dropping her book she saw Dr. Camperdown hugging himself like a huge bear before the fire. “Good afternoon,” he said; “I met that new domestic of yours in the hall and asked her name. She said it was Gregory. Every letter of that name is full of blood to me. Shall I tell you why?”

“If you like,” said Mrs. Colonibel with an unamiability that affected him not in the least.

“When I was a boy I used to visit at my uncle’s in Yarmouth county. A man called Black Donald Gregory murdered his sister and cousin in a quarrel, and the whole country rang with the story. The sheriff took Black Donald to Yarmouth town to be hanged. On the road the sheriff would say, ‘Black Donald, you have only twelve hours to live’; and Black Donald would sit in his coffin eating oat cake and saying nothing. The sheriff would say further, ‘Black Donald you have only eleven hours to live.’ But Black Donald sat in his coffin eating oat cake all the way to Yarmouth town. The sheriff warned him every hour, but Black Donald ate oat cake to the last, cramming a bit in his mouth as he mounted the scaffold. Queer story, isn’t it? It used to make my blood run cold. Don’t mind it now.”

Flora shuddered, and without answering him picked up her book as a hint to him to be gone. To her secret dismay he appeared to be just in the humor for a gossip, and as he warmed his back at the fire said agreeably,

“What’s that book you’re in such a hurry to get back to?”

Mrs. Colonibel reluctantly mentioned the name of the story.

“Been crying over it, haven’t you?” he asked. “Wasting tears over a silly jade that never existed, and over a nice girl that does exist and does suffer you’ll bestow not a word of sympathy. You women are queer creatures.”

“Not a bit queerer than men,” said Mrs. Colonibel, goaded into a response.

“Yes, you are,” he retorted. “For double-twistedness and mixed motives and general incomprehensibility, commend me to women; and you’re unbusinesslike, the most of you. You, Flora Colonibel, are now acting dead against your own interests. What makes you so hateful to that little French girl?”

Mrs. Colonibel moved uneasily about on her cushions. “She isn’t little,” she said; “she is as tall as I am.”

“What makes you so hateful to her?” he said relentlessly.

“You should not talk in that way to me, Brian,” said Mrs. Colonibel in an aggrieved tone of voice. “I’m not hateful to her.”

“Yes, you are; you know you are,—hateful and spiteful in little feminine ways. You think people don’t notice it; they do.”

Mrs. Colonibel was a little frightened. “What do you mean, Brian?”

“Simply this. You have a young and fascinating girl under your roof. You suppress her in spite of the fact that she will soon be a married woman and in a position to lord it over you. People are talking about it already.”

“That wretched Irish woman!” exclaimed Mrs. Colonibel; “I wish that she had been born without a tongue.”

“Don’t be abusive and vulgar, Flora. Once you get that reputation there isn’t a man in Halifax that will marry you. You know your ambition is to get a husband; but you’re playing a very bad game just now, a very bad one.”

At this bit of information, of which his victim was only too well assured by her own inner consciousness, she began to shed tears of anger and mortification.

“Don’t cry,” said Camperdown soothingly, drawing up a chair and sitting astride it within easy reach of the box of sweetmeats on her lap, “and don’t bite your handkerchief.”

She would have given the world to be alone, but she was obliged to sit still, answering his questions and watching him coolly eat her sweets.

“Confide in me, Flora,” he said kindly; “I’m the best friend you have. Tell me just how you feel toward Miss Delavigne.”

“I hate her,” she said, striking her teeth together and tearing her handkerchief to shreds. “You’ve no idea how I hate her, Brian,” and she burst into violent sobbing.

She had thrown off all disguise, as indeed she was often in the habit of doing with him, for he understood her so well that she never could deceive him and knew that she gained nothing by attempting to do so.

“That’s right,” he said, stripping the paper off a caramel and transferring it to his cheek. “Unburden your conscience; you’ll feel better. We’ll start from that. You hate her. People will hate each other; you can’t help it. Now let us consider the subject without any appeal to higher motives, which would only be an embarrassment in your case, Flora. You can’t help hating her; do you hate yourself?”

“No,” indignantly, “you know I don’t.”

“No,” he repeated in accents of blandishment; “out of all the world the person set up for your love and adoration is Flora Colonibel. Now in hating Miss Delavigne, and in showing that you hate her, are you doing Flora Colonibel good service?”

He would not proceed till she answered him, so at last she vouchsafed him a sulky, “No.”

“You’re working right against Flora Colonibel,” he said. “You’re blasting her prospects for worldly advancement; you’re preparing her for an old age spent in a garret.”

Mrs. Colonibel shivered at the prospect held out before her, but said nothing.

“What’s your income apart from what Stanton gives you?” he asked.

“Five hundred dollars a year,” reluctantly.

“Five hundred to a woman of your expensive tastes! How much was that embroidered toga you have on?”

“Thirty dollars.”

“And your sandals, or whatever they are?”

“Three.”

“And the book?”

“Fifty cents.”

“The ring on your finger?”

“Fifty dollars.”

“That is eighty-three dollars and fifty cents. And you and Judy expect to live on five hundred.” Throwing the empty confectionery box into the fire, he rose as if, in intense disapproval of her plans for the future, he could no longer stay with her.

Mrs. Colonibel was in a state bordering on hysterics. “What shall I do, Brian?” she gasped, holding him convulsively.

“Mend your ways and increase your graces,” succinctly. “Stop nagging Stanton, or he’ll turn you out of the house before you’re a twelvemonth older. Treat ma’m’selle decently, and follow Stanton’s lead in everything. He is your employer. He doesn’t love you overmuch, but he’ll not be a hard one. Good-bye.” And gently pulling his coat from her quivering hand, he sauntered from the room, muttering to himself, “Medicine’s bitter, but it’s better for her to take it.”

Going on his way down the staircase he crossed the lower hall and looked into the drawing room. Its only occupant was Valentine, who lay stretched out at length on a sofa reading a book which he closed when he saw Camperdown.

“Beastly cold day, isn’t it?” he asked, putting his hands under his handsome, graceless head to prop it still higher.

“Depends upon your standpoint,” said Camperdown drily. “Where’s Stanton?”

“In town—in his office, I suppose.”

“Why aren’t you there?”

“Oh, I’ve about cut the office. Stanton doesn’t make me very welcome when I do go.”

“You’re of no use to him, probably.”

“Well, I don’t adore bookkeeping,” frankly; “and Stanton lets me take no responsibility in buying or selling.”

“Suppose he should die, also your father, do you think you could carry on the business?”

“Couldn’t I!” said Valentine, with all of a young man’s sublime confidence in his own capabilities.

“I’d like to see you do it,” grimly. “Things would go ‘ker-smash,’ as old Hannah says. What are you improving you mind with on this glorious day? A literary family, forsooth.”

Valentine Armour, who with all his faults was as sunny-tempered as a child, refused to tell him, and from mischievous motives solely, tried to roll over on his book. He succeeded in getting it under him, and lay on it laughing convulsively. He was slight and tall of figure, but his strength was as nothing against the prodigious power that lay in Camperdown’s limbs when he chose to exert himself.

Shaking Valentine like a rat, he lifted him with one hand by the waistband, and dropped him on the hearth rug, where the young man sat nursing his crossed legs, and convulsed with laughter at the various expressions of disgust chasing themselves over the physician’s plain-featured countenance.

“Too steep for you, eh, Brian?” he said teasingly.

“Erotic trash!” was the reply. “‘He crushed her in his arms’—reading from the book—‘and smothered her with kisses, till terrified at his passion she was–’ Bah! I’ll read no more. You young men read this amatory rubbish and say, ‘That sounds lively,’ and look around for some one to practise on. Why don’t you fill your mind with something solid while you’re young. Do you think you are going to limp around into driveling old age looking for some one to crush to your breast? If you cram your mind with this stuff now, it’s all you’ll have when your gray hairs come. You’re a fool, Valentine. Work is the main business of life—making love an incident. I’ve had my eye on you for some time. You have things reversed.”

“Thank you,” gayly. “Don’t you ever read novels?”

“Of course I do. Good novels have a mission. Many a one preaches a sermon to people that never listen to a minister; but this trash”—scornfully—"into the fire with it!" and he tossed the book among the coals in the grate.

“Peace to its ashes,” said Valentine, stifling a yawn. “It was a slow thing, anyway.”

“Come drive to town with me,” said Camperdown.

“Can’t; I’m tired. I was skating all the morning. I think I’ll go and ask Judy for a cup of tea.”

“Is ma’m’selle civil to you?” asked Camperdown.

“Pretty much so. I’m trying to get up a flirtation with her, but she’s too high and mighty to flirt, though she could very well do it if she tried.”

“I’m glad there’s one girl that doesn’t worship your doll face.”

“That she won’t flirt with me is no sign that she doesn’t,” said Valentine saucily. "Go to your patients, Camperdown, and leave the girls to me.

 
“His pills as thick as hand grenades flew,
And where they fell as certainly they slew.”
 

Camperdown threw a sofa cushion at him, but Valentine dodged it, and placing himself comfortably by the fire watched lazily through the window the energetic manner in which the friend of his family jumped into his sleigh and drove away.

CHAPTER XIV
THE STOLEN POCKET-BOOK

Early one evening Stargarde was sitting sewing in her room when she heard on the veranda the blustering noise that usually accompanied Dr. Camperdown’s arrival. She smiled and glanced apprehensively at Zeb, who had been spending the day with her, and who now lay on the sofa apparently asleep.

Then she dropped her work and turned to greet the newcomer.

“No, thank you, I can’t sit down,” he said. “I came to bring you some money that Mr. Warner handed me for your poor people. Here it is,” and taking out his pocket-book he handed her a check. “You’d better spend some of it on that little mudlark of yours,” with a nod of his head in the direction of the sofa.

Zeb, who was only pretending to be asleep, heard the half-contemptuous half-good-natured epithet, and like a flash she was off the sofa and clinging to his arm, scratching, snarling, and biting at him like an enraged cat.

Stargarde was intensely distressed, and Dr. Camperdown was electrified. Around and around the table he went, trying to shake the child off without hurting her, and yet becoming more and more disturbed as he heard the ripping of cloth.

“Stop, stop—you little fury,” he exclaimed. “Let go! I’ll have to hurt you, I see,” and bending back the child’s fingers in his powerful hands he dropped her on the floor gently, but as hastily as if she were a rat, and snatching at his hat hurried to the door.

He flung it open and rushed out, none too soon, however, for the child was at his heels. Across the veranda and out under the archway they dashed, and Stargarde, hastening to watch them, heard their hurrying footsteps echoing down the frosty street. Used to surprising scenes of all kinds she was not unduly alarmed, and thoughtfully smoothing out the check and murmuring, “Poor little Zeb,” she sat down to write a note of thanks.

After some time there was a cautious knock at the door, then a head was thrust slowly in, which, to her surprise, she saw belonged to Dr. Camperdown.

“Are you alone?” he said. “Has that—that little witch come back? If she has I won’t come in.”

“No, she hasn’t.”

Camperdown advanced into the room making a wry face. “I have been robbed.”

“Brian!”

“Yes; that small darling of yours has made off with my pocket-book.”

“Impossible, Brian!” exclaimed Stargarde clasping her hands.

“Not so,” he retorted coolly. “She has it. I was on my way to the police station, but changed my mind and thought I’d come here first.”

“Brian, I cannot have her arrested.”

“Very well; then get my property from her. There are papers in that book worth a large sum to me. I’ve traveled half over the world and carried a pocket full of notes here, there, and everywhere, and never was robbed before.”

Stargarde suddenly became calm. “Sit down and let us talk it over.”

He gave utterance to his favorite exclamation, “Good—there’s considerable of the detective about you, Stargarde, and you’ve had experience with people of this stripe. Now what shall we do?”

She smiled feebly at him. “Where did you keep your pocket-book, Brian?”

He displayed a well of a pocket in his inside coat situated immediately over his brawny chest. “Impossible to fall out you see. Put your hand in.”

“Oh, I can see; do you always keep it there?”

“Always.”

“When did you have it last?”

“When I took it out to give you the check. I had the book half-way back into my pocket when the young lamb sprang upon me. You remember how she grabbed and dived at me—wanted to tear her way to my heart, I think. Probably she snatched the book and concealed it among her rags.”

She had no rags to conceal it among," said Stargarde reproachfully; “she had on a decent frock.”

“Well, what is your theory?” he said impatiently.

“She was angry and thought only of punishing you. The book must have fallen from your coat as you ran and she picked it up and is keeping it to tease you.”

“I will tease her,” grimly, “if she doesn’t give it up. Come, what shall we do? Get a policeman?”

“No, Brian, I will get it for you,” and she left him and went into her bedroom and put her hand to her head with a swift ejaculation, “O Lord, give me wisdom. They are terrible people—her parents. If they find the book on her they will not give it up.”

She looked around the room as if for inspiration. “I have it,” she said, snatching a little box from her dressing table. “Thank God for putting it into the hearts of kind friends to send me the wherewithal to do good.” Then taking a hat and cloak from a drawer, and rolling Zeb’s cap and shawl in a parcel, she went out to Dr. Camperdown and said quietly, “I am ready.”

He held open the door for her, and looked down approvingly at the large black dog that went silently out with his nose against her skirts.

They went up a street leading to the Citadel Hill, which crouched in the midst of the city like some huge animal turned stiff in the cold, its flanks covered with yellow, tufted, frozen grass, the great crown of the fort resting solidly on its brow. A few lights flashed at the top of the signal staff but the grim fortification sunk in the ground was outwardly dark and gloomy, though within they knew there were lights and fires and soldiers keeping ceaseless watch.

Near the Citadel was a tenement house, inhabited by nearly twenty persons. Stargarde knew them all, knew just which rooms they occupied, and on arriving in front of the building, she refused to allow Camperdown to accompany her within.

Very unwillingly he consented to stay outside, a little comforted to see that the dog slunk in after her like her shadow. Stargarde had requested him not to linger by the door, so he walked up and down the opposite side of the street, where there were no houses, surveying moodily sometimes the frozen glacis on one side of him, and sometimes the gaudy windows of the little eating and drinking shops on the other. A few soldiers in greatcoats passed at intervals up and down the street, but always across from him, and occasionally a man or a gayly dressed girl would swing open a shop door and let a stream of music and a smell of cooking food out on the night air.

While he waited, he mourned angrily and bitterly, as he had done a thousand times before, the passion, or credulity, or madness, or whatever it was, that took his pure, white lily into such houses as these. “Those people are well enough off,” he muttered angrily; “why can’t she let them alone? They live their life, we live ours. She thinks she can raise them up. Pah! as easily as rats from a gutter.”

He grumbled on mercifully unconscious of the fact that could he have seen Stargarde at the time his uneasiness would not have been allayed.

The old tenement house was one of the worst in the city, and when Stargarde entered it, she knew she must step cautiously. Passing through the doorway she found herself in a narrow, unlighted hall, not evil-smelling, for the door had been partly ajar, but as cold as the outer world, and with an uneven floorway, almost covered by an accumulation of ice and snow brought in during many days by many feet, and that would linger till a thaw came to melt it.

At the back of the hall was a sound of running water, where the occupants of the house, with a glorious disregard of the waste, kept their tap running to save it from freezing. Beyond the tap Stargarde knew she must not go, for there was a large hole in the floor utilized as a receptacle for the refuse and garbage of the house, which were thrown through it into the cellar. As for the cellar itself, it was entirely open to the winter winds. The windows had been torn away, part of the foundation wall was crumbling, and over the rickety floor she could hear the rats scampering merrily, busy with their evening feast.

Stargarde avoided the icy sink, the running water, and the crazy steps that led to the cellar, and guiding herself along the hall by touching the wall with the tips of her outstretched fingers, put her foot on the lowest step of the staircase. Carefully she crept up one flight of stairs after another, past walls flecked with ugly sores, where the plaster had fallen off in patches, past empty sockets of windows staring out at the night with glass and sash both gone, and past the snowdrifts lying curled beneath on the floor.

On two flats she passed by doors where threads of light streamed out and lay across the rotten boards, while a sound of laughter and rough merrymaking was heard within.

In the third, the top flat, there was no noise at all. “Foreigners they are, and queer in their ways,” ejaculated Stargarde; and pausing an instant to listen for some sign of life, she lifted up her face to the crazy, moldy roof overhead, where some of the shingles were gone, affording easy ingress to snow and rain, which kept the floor beneath her feet in a state of perpetual dampness.

“Iniquitous!” she murmured; “judgment falls on the city that neglects its poor.” Then bringing down her glance to the doors before her, she sighed heavily and proceeded a little farther along the hall. There were three rooms in this story, and Zeb’s parents lived in the front one. Their door had been broken in some quarrel between the people of the house, and one whole panel was gone. There was a garment clumsily tacked over it, and Stargarde might have pulled it aside if she had been so minded; but she had not come to spy upon her protégés, and contented herself with knocking gently.

The very slight, almost inaudible, sound of voices that she had been able to hear within the room instantly ceased; after a short interval a voice asked her in excellent English who she was and what she wanted.

“Miss Turner,” she replied good-humoredly, “and I should like to see Zeb for a few minutes.”

The door was opened part way, and she was sullenly motioned to enter by a tall woman, who slipped behind it so as to be partly unobserved, giving her visitor as she did so a look which certainly would have attracted Stargarde’s attention could she have seen it, so blended with a curious variety of emotions was it.

They were having a quiet carousal Stargarde saw, when she found herself in the room. There was a tearing fire in the stove, and on its red-hot top foamed and bubbled a kettle of boiling water. The windows were tightly closed and draped with dirty garments; a small table, having on it candles, a pack of cards, and a jug of steaming liquor, stood at one side of the room, and beside it sat two men, both foreigners, judging by their swarthy faces and plentiful supply of silky, black hair.

They were very drunk, but the woman was only partly so. The men eyed Stargarde in insulting, brutish curiosity, hurling interjections, remarks, and questions at her in a gibberish which she fortunately could not understand.

She paid little attention to them. Her eyes leaped beyond to the dirty bed on the floor, and held a pair of glittering orbs that she knew belonged to the child of whom she had come in search. She did not wish Zeb to have one instant to herself in which to secrete the pocket-book. The child had pulled about her some of the rags with which she was surrounded, and was sitting up, looking like a wild animal disturbed in its lair.

Stargarde crossed the room quickly and knelt down beside her. “You ran away from me this evening,” she whispered; “see, darling,” and opening a box she showed the child a layer of sweetmeats daintily wrapped in colored paper.

“Take one, Zeb,” she said, and the child silently submitted to have one put in her mouth. “Now I must go,” said Stargarde; “you keep this pretty box, and will you come and see me to-morrow?”

“Mebbe,” said the child sullenly, and taking another sweetmeat.

Stargarde’s heart beat fast. The girl was an enigma to her in her moody self-possession. Perhaps she had not taken the pocket-book. “Goodbye, Zeb,” she murmured, making as though she would rise from the floor. “Have you no present for me? I thought you might have.”

Zeb flashed her a look, half cunning, half admiring. “You’re a quaint one,” she observed in Italian patois; then she displayed her sharp, white teeth in a mirthless smile: “If you’ll give me a kiss.”

Stargarde leaned over and took the child in a capacious embrace, and as she did so, felt something flat slipped into the bosom of her dress. “Is it all there?” she murmured in Zeb’s ear; “you haven’t taken anything out?”

“Pas si bête,” returned the child. “Not I. Think I want to cool my heels in the little saint? I was goin’ to fetch it in the mornin’; but you take the curlyhead back his sacred. I don’t want it. It danced out of his pocket. Some day,” coolly, “I’ll pick him. He’s a–I’d like to see his grape jam running,” with an oath and sudden darkening of face. Stargarde was familiar with some of the slang of recidivists collected together in large cities, but she had never before the advent of Zeb’s parents heard it in the small city of Halifax. With a sensation of poignant and intense grief she looked at the child who, whether it was due to her environment or not, was talking more of it this evening than she had ever heard from her before.

“Curlyhead,” Stargarde knew, meant Jew; “little saint,” prison; “sacred,” purse; and “grape jam” was blood. Oh, to get the child away from here, from the choking, stifling atmosphere of poverty and vice that was ruining her!

Zeb, as if aware of her distress, had curled herself up sullenly among the rags, and Stargarde rose to her feet and turned to speak to her mother.

In a corner of the room she found an extraordinary scene being enacted. Unknown to her, while she bent over Zeb, the younger of the two men had managed to stagger quietly from his seat and stand behind her, divided between an admiration for her magnificent physique, such a contrast to his own puny strength, and an endeavor to keep on his tottering legs.